1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an occupant protection device that is provided in a vehicle door and inflates an expanding body along the inside surface of a window.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-332575, filed Nov. 17, 2005, and Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-351779, filed Dec. 6, 2005, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
As an occupant protection device that is provided in a door of a vehicle, there is known a door-mounted occupant protection device that deploys an expanding body that is provided between an inner panel of the door and a lining that covers the cabin interior side thereof. Among this type of occupant protection device, in order to shorten the overall length, one has a structure in which the end portion of the inflator where a fluid delivery port is formed is directly inserted in the expanding body, with the inflator being disposed directly beneath the expanding body in an overlapping manner (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2005-88884).
The expanding body in an occupant protection device is disposed so as to be able to cover the necessary area for protecting an occupant during a vehicle collision. Therefore, in the case of adopting a structure in which the inflator is disposed directly beneath the expanding body as described above, there is a possibility that the inflator located directly under the expanding body may overlap the position of the occupant. The inflator generally has a rigid housing. Therefore, in the case of a structure that disposes the inflator directly beneath the expanding body as described above, it is necessary to provide an impact absorption structure in order to protect the occupant from the inflator in the event of a vehicle collision.
Moreover, since the impact absorption margin (stroke) decreases by an amount corresponding to the inflator, a high-efficiency impact-absorbing configuration becomes necessary, thereby leading to complication of the structure.
Also, adopting a structure in which the inflator is disposed directly beneath the expanding body as described above leads to the inflator being disposed at a position away from the portion where the door is attached to the vehicle body. As a result, a relatively large input force may occur at the inflator during opening and closing of the door.
Furthermore, in a door-mounted air bag device as disclosed in JP 2005-88884 A described above, due to on-vehicle layout considerations, the inflator that feeds the fluid for expansion to the expanding body may be disposed on the side of the expanding body that expands during a vehicle collision.
In the case of a structure that disposes the inflator on a side of the expanding body, deformation of a mounted member on the vehicle body side to which the air bag device is mounted during a collision may cause relative rotation of the expanding body and the inflator. This may result in damage to the member and the like that couples the expanding body and the inflator. For example, there are numerous cases of side impacts with utility poles and trees that are long in the vertical direction. During such impacts, the occurrence of local deformation in the mounted member increases the likelihood of the relative rotation described above.
Accordingly, a first object of the present invention is to provide an occupant protection device that can simplify the structure and minimize the input force to the inflator during opening and closing of the door.
Also, a second object of the present invention is to provide an air bag device having a structure that disposes the inflator on the side of the expanding body and being capable of suppressing damage during a vehicle collision with an air bag device.